Back in 1992 Reichenstein 2165 was founded for combining traditional alpine musical roots with modern music production technology especially electronics. Traditional instruments as hammered dulcimers, harps and flutes meet electronic instruments as synthesizers, samplers and drum computers. Main goal was to arrange traditional tunes in a specific way - far beyond the modern type of "volkstümliche Musik" that is featured through many TV-shows - to show the melancholic side of those traditional melodies of traditional "Jodler" or the rhythmic phrases of traditional dances. Maybe just an alpine version of "Riverdance" or Mike Oldfields Versions of scottish or irish traditionals. In the early days we played only traditional tunes mainly without recording just for fun. Afterwards these traditional songs were supplemented with own songs. But also these songs are widely influenced by the traditional alpine music. But as well there are influences of new age, world or classical music.
The next steps were to ask lots of family members and friends to join the project. In the beginning we only played traditional tunes but we soon added some own-written songs. But nevertheless the traditional influences are always there.
Looking for a name for those activities we soon found success. A mountain near my home town should be the "brand name". As we found that "Reichenstein" would not be individual enough we enclosed the altitude of 2165m (but there were long discussions whether 2165 or 2166m is correct:-).
In all the past few years I had the chance spending a lot of time with 3 lovely musicians by my side. But due to personal reasons and more and more limited time Reichenstein 2165 has become a one-man-project of Björn Leodolter (keys, guitars and recording).
